PLSA 2019: Brexit deal 'win-win' for Johnson – Nick Robinson

Former BBC political editor and The Today Programme presenter Nick Robinson has described Boris Johnson's Brexit deal as a 'win-win' for the Prime Minister.

Speaking at the PLSA 2019 Annual Conference, Robinson said that Johnson and his team would see it as a victory even if the deal got voted down in parliament.

He explained: “Boris Johnson's team will regard what happened yesterday as a win-win regardless of whether they lose in parliament or not.

“By getting a deal, he's disproved all the people who said ' he didn't really want a deal'.”

Not only has this therefore appeased the Brexit voters who want to leave with a deal, but Robinson argued that the deal could also appease those opposed to leaving the European Union.

He continued: “So to the people who thought he was a 'Brexiteer nutter', who just just blowing everything up with this guy Dominic Cummings, he's now able to say 'what do you mean? I'm now a friend of Junkers and they're all clapping me on the back and smiling at me'.

“So he's simultaneously able to reassure non-ideological Brexiteers, which means many of the 21 kicked out of the party can now come back, and it means that he can say to pro-European Tories 'we don't have to leave'.”

“Simultaneously it looks like he's trying to deliver Brexit to the Brexit party.”

In a presentation focusing on Brexit, and the implications of leaving the European Union with or without a deal, Robinson said that this could be “Brexit ground hog day”.

“A deal, remember Theresa May had more than one, in which she shook hands and looked cheerful with Junker and everybody said well done. Then what happens? The DUP change their minds and decide that they're not really in favour, she puts it to a Commons vote, it gets defeated, then Brexit gets delayed.”